


red/grey

by deathtouch



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blackwatch Era, Colors, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 15:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19930282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathtouch/pseuds/deathtouch
Summary: ☛ written for themcgenji eventsmcgenji week 2019| day 1 - caught off guardHe looked down at the ground instead, at the dirt under his feet. The brown dirt. He could see it. He could see the color of it. His heart stuttered to a stop in his chest.





	red/grey

**Author's Note:**

> this is an au in which people are colorblind except they can see the color that their soulmate's eyes will be and when two soulmates meet all colors become visible. i don't know if jesse's eyes are actually grey, but the colors of [his nendoroid](https://images.goodsmile.info/cgm/images/product/20181031/7766/55655/large/b475daf560b56841098ca8c0bddc07ba.jpg) gave me the impression that they are.

Jesse didn’t even realize anything was different at first. He was still getting used to red, to seeing it everywhere. He saw blood for the first time in full vivid technicolor just the other day and that was still stuck on his mind. He was just trying to go about his day like normal: do his training exercises, mind his own business, try not to stare at every single red thing there was to see.  
  
Then he was being introduced to Genji Shimada, the poor guy who had been stuck up in the infirmary for weeks. Most everyone knew he was there or had seen glimpses of him; the wires and tubes and machines keeping him alive. Now he was up, walking around, and apparently, he was going to be joining the strike team when his body was ready.  
  
Jesse stuck out his hand to shake like he would anyone. He looked Genji in the face, saw the red glint in his eyes, and instinctively looked away. He didn’t want to be reminded of this weird color he had started seeing all of a sudden, out of nowhere, for no reason. One day the world was shades of grey with touches of brown here or there and the next it was red, red, red.  
  
He looked down at the ground instead, at the dirt under his feet. The brown dirt. He could see it. He could see the color of it. His heart stuttered to a stop in his chest. He could see brown again, could see the mud scuffed on his boots. What did this mean? He didn’t understand...?  
  
He didn’t have time to think too hard about it because the next thing he knew, Genji Shimada was launching himself at him. Knocked him flat on his ass. Caught off guard, Jesse hit the ground hard, slammed onto his back with Genji’s full weight on top of him. Jesse didn’t fight back. Couldn’t. The sky above him was a color he’d never seen before and he was so shocked he didn’t know what else to do.  
  
“You!” Genji shouted, vicious anger and accusation in his voice.  
  
The handler who was showing Genji around, some medical liaison officer Jesse didn’t know real well named Keller, was shouting too. Yelling about how Genji needed to be careful, that he wasn’t cleared for physical activity, that he could hurt himself, to stop what they were doing. Genji wasn’t listening. He didn’t care. He shook Jesse by the shoulders, thumping his head against the ground.  
  
“GREY EYES?”  
  
Jesse didn’t need to know any other languages to know he was being cursed at after that; called every nasty name in the book. Genji shook him again and again until Jesse could fend him off, until Keller could get a grip on Genji and yank him back. Then they were both sprawled on their asses, panting, but at least Jesse could sit up now and no one was beating on him.  
  
“We need to take you back inside, You weren’t approved for any strenuous-“ Keller tried to touch him and Genji shoved him off.  
  
“Take a walk,” Jesse ordered.  
  
He didn’t really have that kind of authority, but he was on the strike team and most people were impressed enough by that to do what he said. Not to mention he was friendly with Reyes. Jesse had never used that as pull before, had never asked the commander for any favors, but everyone knew he could if he wanted to, so they went along with him when he put his foot down.  
  
Keller’s expression went hard. “I’m going to get Doctor Ziegler,” he decided, probably to tattle on Genji for getting too physical too soon. Hell, he’d been on bed rest for so long, these new parts of his were probably untested. Maybe it was a good thing to get a medic in here after the stunt Genji had just pulled.  
  
When Keller left neither of them said anything to each other, though. They just kept breathing. Jesse stared out at the horizon, the grass in the distance, the sky. All colors he had never seen before. He didn’t really know their names, but he liked them. They were pretty. It felt so good to see brown again. He wanted to smile. Wanted to be happy. Then he glanced warily at Genji and wasn’t sure how to feel after all.  
  
“Grey eyes,” Genji said again, angry as ever. “Grey eyes. Grey eyes!” his flesh and blood hand clenched into a trembling fist of anger and he devolved into more angry cursing.  
  
Jesse frowned. He knew his eyes were grey. Someone had mentioned it to him once somewhere along the lines. It was on all his official forms. He never really thought about what that meant, though. Never really thought it mattered. It had never occurred to him how his soulmate might feel with no color to see. He was the exact opposite of those lucky bastards who had hazel eyed soulmates. So many colors were filled in for them already, brown, green, blue, even yellow sometimes.  
  
“I thought I was alone.” Genji said again, cold in a way. No emotion, not hurt. He was just stating a fact. “I thought that there must not be anyone out there for me. I thought I didn’t have a soulmate.”  
  
Jesse knew the feeling. All his life he had been able to see the color brown. The soil in the gardens, the trunks of the trees. The New Mexico landscape for miles and miles. His whole world was brown. Then a few weeks ago it all changed. He lost the color completely, gone, faded to grey. The only thing he could see was red.  
  
He had never heard of this happening to people before. There were no answers for him on the internet when he tried to research it, nothing definitive at least. Too scared to tell anyone about this change, he asked Moira hypotheticals instead. “Do people ever stop seeing a color? What if they see a new color? What if it’s a weird color that most eyes aren’t?” She had entertained him for a little while before shooing him off to get some work done.  
  
He thought he had lost his soulmate. He was almost sure of it. What else could explain it? His soulmate was dead or gone or unreachable, and he was being given one last glimmer of color before it all faded to grey. He knew what it was like to think he didn’t have a soul mate. He knew how lonely it felt. He knew how much it hurt.  
  
“Grey eyes,” Genji hissed again, shaking his head.  
  
“Yeah, well. I‘m sorry it was like that for you.” Jesse stood up and brushed himself off. He stuck out his hand for Genji to take so he could pull him up from the ground. Genji ignored it, standing up on his own.  
  
Something about that made Jesse angry, and he was running his mouth before he could stop himself. “Hey. You ain’t the only one who’s had it rough. I spent my whole life seeing one color, and the next thing I know it’s changed. Red. I thought my soulmate was dead!”  
  
Genji snapped a glare at him. “That’s different, at least you thought you had someone. For your entire life you had hope. I had nothing.”  
  
Jesse marched into Genji’s space, got in his face. “Excuse you! I had to watch the only color I had ever known change from something warm and deep to something vibrant and terrifying. I couldn’t even recognize my face in the mirror anymore, my hair, my beard. It didn’t look like me.”  
  
“I don’t care!” Genji shouted.  
  
“YOU SHOULD!” Jesse shouted back.  
  
Genji glared at him, boiling hot, eyes shining red. Then suddenly they were kissing? Genji’s hands on the sides of his face, pulling him in, lips mashed together all artless and angry. But God it felt so good to kiss someone, to kiss his soulmate. The person he was going to be with forever and ever.  
  
Jesse kissed him until they were breathless and panting all over again. When he pulled away he stared into Genji’s eyes again. His red eyes.  
  
“What happened?” He asked, much gentler than he’d been before. “Why’d they change?”  
  
Genji just shook his head. “Just another part of my body that’s different now.”  
  
Jesse hadn’t heard the full story, but he’d heard rumors.  
  
“You can tell me about it, if you want.” He nodded his head towards the training grounds. If they walked off towards the northeast corner of the campus, they could find a bench to sit and watch the sunset together. It was a cheesy tradition, as old as time, for soulmates to experience color together this way. “Or we can just watch the sun go down.”  
  
Genji swallowed hard. He stared out across the property, soaking in all the color Blackwatch’s training grounds had to offer. Of course, this was only the half of it. There would be so much more to see on the horizon when the sun went down. The tension was leaving his body slowly but surely. Like the weight of the world was lifting off his shoulders.  
  
Jesse knew what he was feeling.  
  
He could feel it too.

**Author's Note:**

> send requests or prompts ➝ [here](https://curiouscat.me/deathtouch)  
> follow me on twitter ➝ [here](https://twitter.com/deathtouchxx)  
> thanks for reading ✩°｡⋆


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